‘It’s fascinating...people in Bombay are never content’: Tejaswini Apte-Rahm on ‘The Secret of More’

Tejaswini Apte-Rahm’s debut novel, The Secret of More, has been longlisted for the 2023 JCB Prize for Literature. Scroll spoke to Apte-Rahm about the origins, themes, and writing of this novel.

The Secret of More goes into the beating heart of Bombay, a city that spins cotton into gold, a young man, Tatya, arrives to make a living. Ambitious and hard-working, he begins to make a name for himself in the city’s famed textile market. Meanwhile, his new bride, Radha, navigates the joys and the challenges of raising a family in a city that is a curious and often bewildering mix of the traditional and the rapidly modernising.

Having tasted success in the world of textiles, Tatya chances upon an opportunity in the emerging industry – motion pictures – and is swept up in it despite his initial hesitation about this strange world of make-believe. His success seems unstoppable – the silent films he produces draw in the crowds and his new theatre is a marvel, but his friendship with and attraction to an actress, Kamal, threatens to shake his world and causes him to question his integrity.

Set against the backdrop of bustling colonial Bombay, The Secret of More is a journey of relentless ambition, steadfast love, and grim betrayal, as Tatya strives to unlock the secret of more – of having more and being more. In a story that travels from the clatter of textile mills to the glamour of the silent film industry, from the crowded chawls of Girgaon to the luxury of sea-facing mansions, one man and his family learn that in the city of Bombay you can fly – but if you fall, it is a long way down.